


Another Shot (Maybe It'll Work This Time)

by clotpolesonly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, sex as self-harm, the missing years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 09:41:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16115795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clotpolesonly/pseuds/clotpolesonly
Summary: The stranger in question just raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m Braeden,” she said. “Just by the way. Nice to meet you.”Laura didn’t appreciate the implied rebuke. She wasn’t at a hole-in-the-wall bar in a futile effort to get drunk enough to forget her brother’s self-destructive spiral because she wanted to practice good manners.





	Another Shot (Maybe It'll Work This Time)

**Author's Note:**

> my 5th contribution to LHAW!!! this time about the 6 missing years between the Hale siblings leaving Beacon Hills and returning to it. so here have some angst, a few of my headcanons on how badly Derek handles to his various traumas, and my steadfast insistence that Laura is almost as bad.

Laura slammed back a shot that burned her throat the whole way down and wished, not for the first time, that it could actually get her drunk. If she ordered something really strong, she could get a bit of a headrush, but it didn’t last. A minute or two at best and then it was gone.

She ordered another shot. The bartender pushed it toward her with a dubious look. Soon he would probably demand to have her car keys, make sure she couldn’t drive herself anywhere. It didn’t matter if he did. She didn’t have anyone waiting for her at home tonight anyway.

Derek was out. He never would say exactly where “out” was, not that she had been all that persistent about it. She’d stopped asking months ago because, while she may not know where he  _ was  _ on these nights, she certainly knew what he was  _ doing. _ He came home every time reeking of smoke and sex and regret. Never the same scent twice.

Laura threw back her latest drink.

If she were a better alpha—a better sister, a better  _ person _ —she would stop him. She should’ve  _ ordered  _ him to stop when she first realized what he was doing to himself, but she hadn’t. She still hadn’t, and she wouldn’t tonight either, no matter how fucked up it was to let her baby brother go out and sleep with anything that moved when he so clearly hated it. When he was only doing it to punish himself for some bullshit, imagined crime he wouldn’t even tell her about.

No, Laura wasn’t going to stop him. Because for whatever twisted reason, when Derek came back from these nights, even if he stank of cum and cheap beer and self-loathing, he  _ smiled. _ For a few hours, he was just a tiny bit closer to who he used to be. And Laura wasn’t strong enough to give that up. She  _ needed _ those glimpses of him, even if it destroyed him to get them.

Another shot.

“You might want to slow down, sweetheart.”

Laura glanced down the bar, a snarl already caught between her teeth. A woman was leaning forward on her elbows a few empty stools down the row, the bare skin of her shoulders dark and smooth. A leather jacket was slung across the counter beside her and the smile she sent Laura’s way was too sharp to be charming.

“I’m not drunk,” Laura told her, already raising her hand for another.

“I know,” the woman said. “And it’s going to start raising eyebrows soon if you keep drinking like that without even getting tipsy. I thought your kind was keen on keeping a low profile.”

The hairs on the back of Laura’s neck rose in a mediocre imitation of hackles. It was a miracle she didn’t break the tiny glass still in her hand or let her eyes flash in the unforgiving dimness of the dive bar’s shitty overhead lights.

“My  _ kind? _ ” she asked through teeth gritted to keep from turning into fangs. The woman didn’t smell like wolfsbane, but there was a definite whiff of gunpowder around her. No visible gun on her, at least. Too public a place to make a scene.

The woman rolled her eyes, completely unconcerned. “Relax,” she said. “I’m no hunter.”

“And I believe that  _ why _ exactly?”

“Believe it or don’t. Makes no difference to me.”

The bartender ambled over to plunk a beer on the counter in front of the not-hunter. He turned to Laura expectantly. There was a watchfulness to him, though, a careful examination in the way he looked at her that said he was waiting for her to start slurring and falling off her stool. But she was too tense now to even  _ fake _ being that loose, and hunter or not, the woman was right: it would be too suspicious to drink all night and show no symptoms at all.

Red-faced and excruciatingly aware of the woman’s dark eyes on her, Laura tucked her previously raised hand under her thigh and shook her head. The bartender relaxed a hair and offered her a tight smile before getting flagged down by another patron, leaving Laura to stew in the unfairness of it all.

As soon as he was out of earshot, she rounded on the woman who was now turned around, leaning back on her elbows and sipping contentedly at her beer.

“How do you know what I am?” she demanded in a hiss.

The woman took her sweet time, apparently savoring her drink, and didn’t even bother to answer the question. Instead, she said, “What kind of troubles you got that you’re trying to drink away when you know it won’t work?”

Laura flushed even deeper and bit back, “ _ None of your business. _ ”

Derek was no one’s business but hers. The aching emptiness left behind deep in her chest by the family ripped away from them was no one’s business but hers. The crushing, claustrophobic press of this entire damn city, all the worse for having nowhere else to go that would be any better, was no one’s business but hers. The fear that ripped at her insides at the mere  _ thought _ of some stranger being able to know her—and Derek’s—most dangerous secret at a glance was no one’s fucking business but hers.

The stranger in question just raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m Braeden,” she said. “Just by the way. Nice to meet you.”

Laura didn’t appreciate the implied rebuke. She wasn’t at a hole-in-the-wall bar in a futile effort to get drunk enough to forget her brother’s self-destructive spiral because she wanted to practice good manners.

“How do you know me?” she demanded, claw tips digging into the seat of her stool.

Braeden rolled her eyes again, like she was tired of Laura’s dramatics. “Honey, I don’t know you. I just know a werewolf when I see one.” She took another swig of beer. “But just because  _ I’m _ not a hunter doesn’t mean there aren’t hunters around, and plenty of them can spot a wolf too.”

A chill ran through Laura that tasted of ash and blood. It lodged in her throat like a bullet when she thought of Derek,  _ out _ somewhere, putting himself in the paths of who knew what kind of people, being so stupid and reckless. Laura bet he never asked any questions about the strangers he went home with. And even if he suspected they meant him harm, would that stop him? Would he even  _ care? _

Laura wasn’t sure he would, and that scared her more than anything. She thought about calling him, but he wouldn’t pick up if she did. A text wouldn’t verify anything, and she had no way of knowing where he was; tracking by scent was largely useless in a city that  _ reeked _ as much as New York did.

Braeden plunked her beer down on the counter. She wasn’t watching Laura. Instead she was scanning the room, eyes tracing over every patron with the casual efficiency of someone who was always aware of every detail of her surroundings.

It was a paranoia Laura was intimately familiar with, one that had just gotten multiplied by ten by Braeden’s pronouncement. Every figure in every shadow looked like a threat now, even ones she’d written off as harmless drunks earlier. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, set her heart racing, wrestled her rational thought into submission, and suddenly she wanted so badly to  _ cry. _

She hated being afraid. And, more than that, she hated being afraid  _ all the time, _ constantly watching her back, never able to relax even for a second. Not just for her sake, but for Derek’s, because it was painfully obvious that he wasn’t going to bother with watching his own. No, he was going to go  _ out  _ and get fucked until he could forget about everything that weighed him down and leave the actual  _ dealing with things _ to Laura.

The flare of resentment was strong enough to catch her off guard. It almost made her feel guilty, blaming her brother. Derek had plenty of issues to justify whatever escapism he could manage, but, damn it, so did Laura.

The shot glass sat innocently on the counter in front of her, empty and pointless and mocking.

Braeden was watching her now, gaze steady enough to make Laura feel off-balance in comparison.

“Why are you telling me any of this?” Laura asked. “Why warn me?”

Braeden shrugged, black curls swaying. “Maybe I don’t like the hunters in town,” she said. “Maybe I’m an altruist.” Her lips tugged up on one side, eyes tracing Laura slowly from head to toe. “Or maybe I just like the look of you.”

Laura’s jumbled thoughts ground to a halt all at once. Braeden didn’t wait for her to rally, just rapped her knuckles on the counter once and sauntered off toward the bank of pool tables across the way and snatched up a cue. Laura stared after her for several long seconds, mouth open around a protest she couldn’t seem to formulate.

Braeden had left her jacket behind, still draped across the counter. She had to have done it on purpose; Braeden didn’t strike Laura as the kind of woman who did  _ anything _ by accident.

Laura reached out and dragged it toward her, near enough that she could sniff it without the action being obvious. It smelled of leather, obviously, but also of gunpowder. A lot of gunpowder, like she spent a good portion of every day with a weapon in hand. Still no wolfsbane, though, nor any of the other specific compounds that hunters were so keen on using against her kind. Sweat, gasoline, a hint of coconut oil.

Who the hell  _ was _ this woman? What kind of human knew about werewolves and smelled like an armory but wasn’t a hunter herself? What kind of armed, in-the-know human  _ warned _ a werewolf about a hunter threat? What kind of armed, in-the-know human  _ hit on _ a werewolf, even knowing what she was?

Laura wanted to be suspicious. She wanted to sprint out the door and disappear into the bustle of the city nightlife, wind through the back alleys and crowded streets until she knew she couldn’t be followed. She wanted to track down her brother and spirit him away from any possible threat. She wanted to leave this Braeden in the rearview mirror and never look back.

She wanted to  _ want _ that.

But the shot glass still mocked her, and Derek was  _ out _ where she could never truly reach him, and she was so goddamn tired of all of it.

She was still holding onto the jacket when Braeden finished her pool game, one hand fisted tightly in the sleeve. Braeden didn’t comment, just gave it a long look as she signaled the bartender for a refill. Neither of them said anything until the beer had been delivered.

“Look,” Braeden said finally. “I don’t care about what your deal is, or the hunters’. I’ve got shit of my own to take care of, so I’m not interested in getting involved. I’m just passing through. Take my warning or don’t, but I don’t want anything from you.”

“Not anything?”

The words were out before Laura could think better of them or what they meant. She had to grit her teeth against the little voice in the back of her head screaming about how bad an idea this was as Braeden’s eyebrow rose. The beer hit the counter again and Braeden leaned back against the bar, all the careful, casual tension of her relaxing into something sinuous and inviting.

“You offering something?” she asked.

Laura swallowed hard but refused to break eye contact. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

Braeden smiled a bit and shook her head. “Sweetheart, I get the feeling you have a laundry list of reasons why you shouldn’t, and none of them have anything to do with me.”

Laura hated her for being right. She hated herself for how much she was staring, how easily she let herself be distracted by the curve of Braeden’s thigh, the swell of her bottom lip, the easy confidence in her every movement. She hated herself for daring to  _ want _ this when there were so many other things she should be wanting.

Laura stood, the motion putting her directly into Braeden’s space when the other woman didn’t move out of the way. Laura was taller by a few inches but Braeden didn’t seem intimidated in the least, not even when Laura, riding on a strange wave of bravado, plucked the beer bottle from her fingers and took a long swig of it herself. It tasted like shit and had absolutely no real effect, but Braeden’s dark eyes following the line of her throat as she swallowed gave her a headrush all its own.

For a few seconds, everything else fell away. And that was all the incentive she needed.

Braeden must have seen her decision on her face because she tugged her jacket out of Laura’s hand and said, “Your place or mine?”

“Not mine.”

Braeden sent her a sidelong look as she pulled the jacket on. “You got someone waiting up at yours?”

Laura fingered the phone in her pocket, knowing it wouldn’t ring until Derek had gotten what he wanted—what he thought he  _ needed— _ and even then, only if his hookup had taken him too far away to walk back before morning. She said, “Not tonight.”

Maybe Braeden would think she had a husband at home that she was cheating on, or that she was a single mother with a unruly kid she needed a break from. It didn’t much matter what she thought, and she didn’t seem to care anyway. She just shrugged and tossed a few bills on the bar, enough to cover both their tabs. Her hips swayed as she led the way toward the exit; she didn’t look back to make sure that Laura was following.

Laura did follow, with a thrill low in her gut, an ache in her chest, and a stubbornly ignored whine of protest in her ears. This was a terrible idea, she knew that much. Derek would probably smell smoke and sex and regret on  _ her  _ come the morning, but he wouldn’t say anything. He wouldn’t stop her any more than she had stopped him. At least they would be a matched set.

And maybe she would smile too. At least for a little while. Hadn’t she earned that?


End file.
